Sundrenched World
by hey abby
Summary: Ness doesn't believe that Jake will stay, so he writes his promise in a letter.


**Disclaimer: **I don't own Twilight, just my own personal beat-up paperback copy.

**A/N**: So this is my first try at a multi-chapter story. It's going to be about five or six chapters.

It's an understatement to say that I'm nervous about posting it. So pretty please be nice?

Also, if you could leave reviews, I will give you cookies, I pinky swear. The really good kind with the chewy center. (:

* * *

_i always wanted to be the one you looked to  
for the answers in me, i'm the one who took you  
to your sun drenched world_

- sundrenched world, joshua radin

* * *

She was sitting with her little legs crossed, facing me. Elbows resting on her knees, tiny hands with clumsy toddler fingers cupping her face.

We were sitting on the beach at La Push. It was a dry, chilly day--chilly enough to make me wonder if maybe Ness needed an extra jacket, even though I knew that her being a half-vampire and stuff, cold didn't affect her as easily as a normal kid. But how easy it was for me to forget that she was anything but normal.

Sometimes I wondered if all her time spent with me had instilled some weird sense of humanity in her, even though she was so young. I didn't want to change who she was. I loved who she was, and I would with or without humanity.

I studied Ness closer, watched her nose wrinkle as our eyes met, watched her little teeth bite down on her bottom lip at the same time.

Ness looked about four, even though she had only been alive for two years. God, two years that felt like two months and two centuries at the same time. Two years that had changed my life. All the memories of the time before her seemed fuzzy, blurred around the edges--I viewed everything through a Nessie-colored lens now.

"Jake?"

Shit. She probably thought I was crazy, sitting there and watching her, not saying a thing. "Ness?"

"I have a question," she said simply. This freaked me out a little--what kind of question was I supposed to answer? She had her brilliant vampire family for answers, and I didn't want to sound like an idiot, even though I knew I would try just because she had asked. I did a lot of things just because Ness asked.

Like during her jump-rope phase, when I would have to sit and watch and count how long she could go without stopping. Watch more Disney princess movies than I knew existed. Wear all those pink beaded bracelets that she loved to make--couldn't her family buy her some differently colored beads? The pink diminished my street cred a little.

"Yeah? And what would that be?" I bumped my knuckles against her knee, encouraging her to go on. Even if I didn't know the right answer, I would always listen.

"I heard Mom and Daddy talking about something yesterday. About how Aunt Rose and Uncle Emmett are going to leave, to go be by themselves for a little while."

Uh oh. What if this was a question about what Emmett and Blondie did while they were away? I was completely not prepared to explain that weird vamp repeated marriage crap. "So what was your question, Ness?"

The wind whipped her hair back, and one curl flipped across her forehead, the bronze strands separating. I brushed it away, waiting for her to continue. Even though Ness was little, she never ignored me. She would keep talking, that much I knew. She was looking at her shoes, chewing on her lip, probably trying to find the right words.

"They wanted to leave, right?" She still wouldn't look at me. Where the hell was she going with this?

"Sure, I think so."

"Sometimes Aunt Alice and Uncle Jasper leave sometimes too." I nodded, scratching a hand through my hair. "B-but... what if... what if--" She was stuttering. This was more important to her than I thought.

"Hey, it's okay. You can tell me. Just say it." I took one of her wrists, pulling her hand down gently so I could hold her fingers in mine. Sometimes I worried I would crush her fingers--her hand was so tiny, so breakable compared my gargantuan one.

She finally met my eyes. She was trying to look in both of them at the same time, and her irises kept flicking back and forth nervously. "What if--maybe one day you wanna leave too? Want to leave me?"

Oh. Oh. Dammit. I was so thick, I should've spared her having to say it. But how could I make her see that there was no possible way I could leave her? Even my hours away from her with the pack worried me. I always wanted to make sure she was safe and happy. From the moment I first saw her, I knew that I would be around forever, in any capacity, to be whatever she needed. I was tied to her, even if she wasn't tied to me. I couldn't cut the tie, couldn't go. Would never _want_ to go.

I leaned closer to her. Her eyes flicked away, and she made a move like she wanted to turn her head. "No, look at me. You will never need to worry about that, okay? I'm never going to leave, I wouldn't do that."

"But if they wanted to, why wouldn't you? What if you get... bored of playing with me?" She was crushing her lips together, so tight they were turning white around the edges.

"Ness, I could never get bored of you. You're my best girl, you know that." My only girl. But I couldn't think about it that way, not yet.

"Do you promise?"

"I promise you," I said, tightening my fingers around hers.

She didn't look sure. I tried to remember that she was only four, technically two, and that words weren't going to be enough with her. "Tell you what, Ness. I'll write you a letter, and you can keep it forever, so that you can always remember my promise. Does that sound like a plan?"

Ness smiled, and I had to smile too. As long as she was smiling, I would write her a letter a day, a letter an hour. Hell, I'd write her a novel, or a book of sonnets. Whatever.

"Forever and ever?" Like she even had to ask.

"Forever and ever."

Ness, always prepared, pulled a little notebook from the pocket of her jacket. It was tiny, glittery, and printed with flowers. Ness had this new thing where she was perfecting her signature, so of course she had to be ready to sign an autograph at all times. She grabbed a pen from the pocket also and shoved them toward me, grinning at me. "Go ahead," she giggled.

So I wrote. I promised.

_Ness,_

_I promise that whenever we get to the scary part in a movie, I'll fast forward and cover your eyes at the same time.  
_

_I promise that I'll give you piggyback rides when your feet hurt, and Band-Aids even though I can never see your 'invisible' bruises._

_I promise that I'll always be the knight in shining armor in your princess games. And that I'll ride a white horse even though black ones are cooler._

_I promise that I'll hug you when you cry, and try your cookies when you make them, and laugh at your stories._

_I promise that I'll go wherever you want to go._

_And that I'll never leave._

_- Jake  
_


End file.
